Monday, June 26, 2017

This is one of those weeks where we’re all going to have to make some tough choices, because there are so many cool screenings happening in the bay area that they overlap! And that’s a pretty great problem to have, if you ask me.

Terror Tuesday sets the mood for the week with the original Ringu. After that, the Roxie has a staff picks night with Wake In Fright on Wednesday. The same night, the Super Shangri-La Show returns to the Balboa theatre for a double feature of prehistoric women and monsters. And we end the week on a high note too, with the VOD release of a new horror movie, as well as an unassuming double feature…

SCUM tells the story of Carlin, a new reform school inmate with a reputation as a hard case. The authorities encourage gang leader Pongo to humble Carlin, but he beats Pongo down and takes over the mantle of Daddy. The guards institute a reign of terror and neglect, with Carlin emerging as an unlikely leader. One of the most important British features of the last 35 years, SCUM still packs a wallop.

In this psychological horror story from Japan, a legend circulates among teenagers that if one watches a certain video at a certain time of the night, the telephone will ring right afterward, and one week later, you will die. When Masami (Hitomi Sato) tells her friend Imako this story, she scoffs -- but a week later, Imako dies. Imako's aunt, a television journalist named Reiko (Nanako Matsushima), hears that not long before she died, Imako was watching a strange video with her friends -- all of whom have turned up dead. Reiko tracks down a copy of the video, and as she watches its strange, spectral images, the telephone begins to ring....The next morning, Reiko begins a desperate search to solve the mystery of the video, convinced she has only seven days to live; assisting her is Ryuji (Hiroyuki Sanada), a mathematics expert and her former husband. Ringu was a box-office success in its native Japan, and a surprise blockbuster in Hong Kong, where it became the biggest grossing film of the first half of 1999. ~ Mark Deming, Rovi

A wheelchair-bound boy helps to reunite an earthbound alien with its extraterrestrial family in this shameless rip-off of Steven Spielberg's E.T.. Separated from his parents shortly after arriving on planet Earth, a Mysterious Alien Creature (MAC) quickly strikes up a friendship with lonely Eric Cruise (former Easter Seals spokesman Jade Calegory). New to town and in need of a pal after losing his father, Eric discovers just how amazing the universe can be when mischievous MAC takes him on the adventure of a lifetime.

A Victorian era scientist and his assistant take a test run in their Iron Mole drilling machine and end up in a strange underground labyrinth ruled by a species of giant telepathic bird and full of prehistoric monsters and cavemen.

Set in the ancient past when humans and dinosaurs lived together, a small tribe is struggling to survive by giving a sacrifice of a blond woman to their god, the sun, in return for protection from the giant lizards and other creatures that preys on them.

In 2029, Logan is a sickly shadow of his former self. Undertaking a final mission, Logan struggles to secure a future for mutantkind in the far-off land of Eden. Hugh Jackman plays the role that made him famous for the final time, and filmmaker James Mangold takes the tale of the Wolverine from the pages of Marvel Comics into an epic, elegiac (and R-rated) western. This noir edition concludes Logan’s story in evocative black-and-white; Sir Patrick Stewart co-stars.

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Mad Max: Fury Road - Black & Chrome Edition (2015)

Tuesday 27th @ 9:30pm (2hrs)

Action/ Adventure/ Sci-Fi (IMDB)

George Miller’s revival his post-apocalyptic action franchise blew the roof off movie houses and blazed away with a truckful of Oscars. Tom Hardy steps into the title role, bringing wounded gravitas to the wasteland warrior; Charlize Theron is equally fine as the hard-driving Imperator Furiosa, whom Max joins in a struggle for freedom from the tyrannical Immortan Joe. Fury Road erupts with visual creativity, and effortlessly balances memorable characters, feminist subtexts, and an abundance of insane stunt work that must be seen to be believed. Now experience it in Miller’s preferred palette: black & white!

Strangers on a Train (1951)

Thursday 29th @ 3:30 & 7pm (1hr 43min)

Mystery/ Suspense (Rotten Tomatoes)

A psychotic socialite confronts a pro tennis star with a theory on how two complete strangers can get away with murder - a theory that he plans to implement.

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Rope (1948)

Thursday 29th @ 5:25 & 8:55pm (1hr 20min)

Drama/ Suspense (Rotten Tomatoes)

Two young men strangle their "inferior" classmate, hide his body in their apartment, and invite his friends and family to a dinner party as a means to challenge the "perfection" of their crime.

Awe-inspiring, brutal and stunning, Wake in Fright is the story of John Grant, a bonded teacher who arrives in the rough outback mining town of Bundanyabba, planning to stay overnight before catching the plane to Sydney. But, as his one night stretches to five, he plunges headlong toward his own destruction. When the alcohol-induced mist lifts, the educated John Grant is no more. Instead there is a self-loathing man in a desolate wasteland, dirty, red-eyed, sitting against a tree and looking at a rifle with one bullet left... Believed lost for many years, Wake in Fright has been painstakingly restored by Australia's National Film and Sound Archive and AtLab Deluxe, and is presented in its original uncompromising form. -- (C) Drafthouse Films

Patrick Bateman is young, white, beautiful, ivy leagued, and indistinguishable from his Wall Street colleagues. Shielded by conformity, privilege, and wealth, Bateman is also the ultimate serial killer, roaming freely and fearlessly. His murderous impulses are fueled by zealous materialism and piercing envy when he discovers someone else has acquired more than he has. After a colleague presents a business card superior in ink and paper to his, Bateman's blood thirst sharpens, and he steps up his homicidal activities to a frenzied pitch. Hatchets fly, butcher knives chop, chainsaws rip, and surgical instruments mutilate-how far will Bateman go? How much can he get away with?

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The Rules of Attraction (2002)

Friday 30th @ 9pm (1hr 50min)

Comedy/ Drama/ Romance (IMDB)

The incredibly spoiled and overprivileged students of Camden College are a backdrop for an unusual love triangle between a drug dealer, a virgin and a bisexual classmate.